Microsoft has published a set of guidelines on which decisions to make now, so that your computer will be ready to run Windows Vista. They claim that any mid-range AMD or Intel processor will do, and even low-end ones will pack enough power to run Vista. 512 MBRAM is advised, but for more advanced users, 1GB is recommended. As for graphics card: "If you are building or buying PC today, you probably want to avoid the low end of the current GPU range and make sure you get a GPU that supports DirectX 9 and has at least 64 MB of graphics memory."My take: I can confirm that the Windows Vista December CTP, with all the effects turned on, runs more than fine on my aging AMD Athlon XP 1600+, 512MB SD-RAM, Ati Radeon 9000 128MB DDR-RAM (DirectX 8 compatible card, so not a DX9 card). Just so you know.

Hm... Even though many other beta testers can testify to the same thing?

Listen, Microsoft has proven recently that they do not bloat software during development like they used to. Look at some aspects of Windows Server 2003 - much faster than its predecessor, as well as having a smaller installation footprint. I don't think that Microsoft is even close to making the same development mistakes that "hurt" earlier versions of Windows.

All of you jumping on Thom - shut up. Seriously. His response was actually quite fair, as it seems the above poster did not know what the hell he was talking about. As of right now, Vista is NOT a "giant killer" of your hardware. Sheesh, stop flaming.